This post was submitted by recent MPA graduate Ryan Ouellette who, along with three other graduate students of nonprofit management from Seton Hall, is currently in Iraqi-Kurdistan, working with the University of Duhok on a new NGO management training program. Building the capacity of the NGO sector there is a key objective of a US State Department funded initiative called the Strategic Dialogue with Civil Society.
After a few weeks here in Kurdistan we are now comfortably settled into our jobs. Our primary role here is to serve as resources if additional information is needed during the aforementioned training courses, but we are also visiting local NGOs to meet with them one on one. The primary goal of these meetings are to gain a clearer picture of the NGO sector in Kurdistan, get an idea of what types of NGOs are working there, and what their biggest organizational challenges are. This information will then be utilized to present reports on our findings, and also to start designing a longer term partnership in the region: an NGO Resource Institute.
Thus far we have conducted ten visits with local NGOs and I couldn’t have imagined them going any better. They were not only welcoming, but were incredibly open to our questions. Interestingly enough, there seems to be a greater sense of trust for foreign assistance than there is from local NGO leaders. From our vantage point this made our original visits much easier as they were eager to share information and try to learn as much as possible from us. However, building mutual trust, understanding, and cooperation with other local NGOs is an issue that certainly needs to be worked on.
We start off each interview discussing the sector in general. This includes impressions of the NGOs in the area, the role of government, strengths and weaknesses, etc. This helps to give us an idea of what shape the NGO Institute will take if we do in fact build a permanent training center in Kurdistan. After we have gained a clear understanding of their beliefs on the NGOs in Kurdistan, we move into the details of their organization. This includes mission statement, number of staff, annual budget size, biggest challenges, collaborations, strategic plan, etc. In a nutshell, the rest of the interview resembles an initial consultation visit: we learn as much as possible about what the organization does so that we can brainstorm ways to make it better.
After we have completed all of the interviews we will be putting together an outline of our findings. This will be used for an academic research paper, but also to help design the future NGO Institute. The NSRI model at Seton Hall is highly successful and will serve as a basic framework; however, the services offered in Kurdistan will be specifically tailored to the local area. Given the willingness to learn and the overall feeling of excitement exhibited by the NGO leaders we have met with, I believe that we truly can help to build civil society here in Kurdistan.